Dreadnaught tlfbtf-1

by Jack Campbell

  Benan simply looked at Geary as if he had heard words in an unknown language.

  Taking his arm in a gentle grasp, Rione spoke for them both. “My husband needs to be checked in and receive his medical evaluation, Admiral. I will have an opportunity to bring him up to date while that is under way. I hope you will forgive us now.”

  “Of course.” He felt ashamed for his anger of a moment earlier. Benan and the others liberated with him were still stressed by the long captivity and bewildered by recent events. They needed to know how things had changed, that the fleet had returned to the honorable practices of their ancestors.

  Gazing back at the other liberated prisoners, Geary saw an admiral and a general looking his way. Time to reposition before I get pinned down. “I need to return to the bridge,” he said to no one in particular in a voice loud enough to carry. He offered the prisoners a quick wave and smile, then dashed off before they could leave the line.

  He made it there only twenty minutes after leaving, finding everything still going well. Of course, he could have directed the operation from anywhere within Dauntless, but humans had long since learned that leaders needed to be seen and needed to issue orders from professionally appropriate locations. Geary had discovered that the old (and apparently true) story of the admiral who had issued orders during a battle from the comfort of his stateroom while drinking beer was still well-known.

  Carabali’s shuttle was the last to dock on Tsunami. “All shuttles recovered, all Marines accounted for, all prisoners located and liberated,” she reported to Geary. “No damage to shuttles, personnel casualties limited to several sprains incurred during the landings.”

  “Outstanding job, General.” Geary let out a long breath that felt like he had been holding it for hours. “All units, execute Formation November at time four zero.”

  Forming into five rectangles, broad sides facing forward, the largest rectangle in the middle itself centered on Dauntless, the Alliance fleet accelerated away from the Syndic planet, heading for the jump point that would take it back to Hasadan. But this time, from Hasadan the fleet would take the Syndic hypernet to Midway. He stood again, stretching out the accumulated tension. “I think I’ll take a break in my stateroom, Captain Desjani.”

  “Get something to eat, too,” she said.

  Resisting the urge to say, “Yes, ma’am,” and salute her in front of the bridge crew, Geary headed for his stateroom by way of a mess compartment to pick up a battle ration. It wasn’t the best food, and arguments within the fleet debated whether battle rations qualified as food at all using most definitions of that word, but the rations filled you up and met minimum daily nutrition requirements.

  He was almost to his stateroom when Desjani came quickly toward him down the passageway, her expression stiff. She gestured wordlessly toward Geary’s stateroom, letting him enter and following closely behind. Once inside she closed the door with great care, then turned to him, her face a mask of barely contained fury, all the more fearsome for the coldness of the fire in her eyes. “Request permission to speak freely, sir.”

  “You never require permission to do that,” he replied, keeping his own voice low and steady.

  “I have been informed of the identity of one of the liberated prisoners. Her husband.”

  “That’s right.” He wondered if her anger was directed at him for not telling her, but it seemed aimed elsewhere.

  “What an amazing coincidence. She came aboard with new orders, diverting this fleet from its planned course and its planned mission in order to come to the prisoner-of-war camp in this star system, a camp that just happened to have her husband among its number.” Desjani’s words came out clipped, hard as a barrage of grapeshot. “We came here on her personal errand.”

  “That’s possible, but—”

  “Possible? She jerked around this fleet for her own personal purposes—”

  “Tanya, hear me out!” He waited as she took a deep breath, the heat in her eyes subsiding to a controlled blaze. “I’ve had time to think about this. First, my impression was that she was shocked to see her husband. But she’s very good at concealing her real feelings, so that’s far from definitive.”

  “She’s—”

  “I’m more worried about dealing with all of the other VIPs.”

  Desjani took a long, slow breath, still furious but keeping the feelings on a shorter leash. “Like Falco.”

  “Multiplied a hundred times.”

  Her eyes narrowed as the fires in them became a white-hot, focused torch. “Why? She didn’t like Falco. Neither did the government. Why unleash dozens more like him?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat down, one hand to his forehead, trying to blank out anger and frustration. The battle ration sat untouched, his appetite fled for the moment. “All I know for certain is that they’re here, and we’re taking them into alien space with us.”

  “Hundreds of loose cannons.” Now Desjani seemed baffled. “What possible advantage does that give anyone?”

  “I think Rione knows why we were sent here to get them.”

  “Her secret orders. But why wouldn’t the government want those Falco-wannabes left in Syndic hands as long as possible? Why make them a priority for release?”

  “I don’t know.” Geary let his eyes rest on the star display floating above the table, which he had left centered on Dunai Star System. “Even if Rione knew that her husband was at Dunai, why would the government have agreed to let her divert this fleet for a personal matter? She’s not that powerful. She’s been voted out of office. And what possible reason would the government have for agreeing if it had any idea that all of those other senior officers were there?”

  “It must have been a price,” Desjani insisted. “Something she demanded in exchange for agreeing to go on this mission and carry out whatever orders she has.” Desjani seemed ready to order Rione’s arrest.

  “She’s still a legal, authorized representative of the government, Tanya. Even if the government agreed to order us to this star system to satisfy Rione’s personal agenda, it’s within the rights of the government to do that.”

  Desjani sat down, too, glaring at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to be dictator?”

  “Yes.” That brought up another thought, though. “We know the government fears this fleet. They fear what I might do with it. But now they’ve ensured that lots of other senior officers who might back a coup are also present with the fleet. It’s either irrational or so brilliantly Byzantine it only seems to make no sense at all.”

  “What if those secret orders jeopardize the safety of this fleet?”

  “We don’t know that—”

  “We don’t know anything.” Desjani jumped up, walked to the hatch, and yanked it open. “It’s like dealing with the aliens.”

  “SOME amount of disorientation is normal in cases like this,” the fleet’s senior medical officer explained to Geary. “But the readjustment difficulties are higher than usual for these individuals. It was a good idea to place many of them on Mistral, where I could conduct personal examinations.”

  Geary smiled and nodded as if he had indeed thought about that on the spur of the moment.

  “Call me old-fashioned,” the doctor continued, “but I think even the best virtual-meeting software misses things. Tiny things, but important in evaluating an individual.”

  “Can you summarize your impressions?” Geary asked.

  “I already did.” The physician hesitated. “I could go into a little more detail, I suppose. As I said, some disorientation is normal. They’ve been in a Syndic labor camp for years at least and, in many cases, decades. They are accustomed to being confined to certain areas, to being subject to arbitrary rules, to having their actions controlled by authorities whose judgment can’t be questioned.”

  That sounds a lot like just being in the military, Geary thought.

  “But in addition to that, there’s the fact that basic certainties are different. The war is over. That’s a
major alteration in what they considered a fixed reality, and unlike those of us who were free to see events unfold recently, it is hitting them all at once. They have been told an intelligent species of aliens exists beyond human space, something totally unexpected. Then there’s you, yourself, that Black Jack, against all rational odds, did indeed return from the dead (figuratively speaking naturally) and achieve the seemingly impossible. To these former prisoners, it’s as if they have suddenly found themselves in a fantasy world rather than the universe they occupied before being captured.”

  The fleet physician looked down, sighing once, before focusing back on Geary. “There’s one other factor unique to these prisoners. As you may have already been informed, many are fairly senior officers. Before being captured, they were used to either being in charge or being highly influential. Many of them believed that they would play an exceptional, personal role in the war because of their own abilities, that they were fated to do great things. There’s a medical term for this set of beliefs.”

  Geary fought down his own sigh. “Geary Syndrome.”

  “Yes! You’ve heard of it?” the doctor said in surprised tones, as if amazed that a nonphysician would have such knowledge.

  “It’s been brought to my attention.”

  “Then I’m sure you understand that they find it hard to deal with a situation where they lack authority in this fleet despite their rank and seniority. Many of them believed that somehow, despite being imprisoned, they would still save the Alliance and defeat the Syndics. Such beliefs helped sustain them. But you already won the war, leaving them without any clear sense of their own destinies.”

  He didn’t need any further explanations to see how much trouble all of those disorientations could add up to. “I’m going to speak with them as a group. It’s already set up for ten minutes from now.”

  “They’ll expect one-on-one meetings with you. I’ve already heard scores of slight variations on ‘I’m certain that I’ll be assuming an appropriate command position very quickly.’ More than one expect to assume command of this fleet.”

  “I understand, but I don’t have time for individual meetings before we jump for Hasadan.” The inability to communicate between ships in jump space except in very brief forms was usually a hindrance, but in this situation, it was a blessing.

  “Your meeting should be most interesting,” the doctor remarked. “May I sit in?”

  “Certainly.” You’ll get to watch the original Geary talking to lots of Geary Syndrome sufferers. That ought to inspire a nice paper for your medical colleagues. “Just do so using the blind participant setting so no one else knows you’re watching and listening.”

  A few minutes later, the conference room grew rapidly in size as the virtual presence of more than two hundred former prisoners flooded in, even those on Dauntless using the software since the actual size of the conference room was too small to accommodate all of them. Geary had intended to speak with them alone; but as he waited, the virtual presences of General Carabali, Captain Tulev, Rione, and General Charban appeared. “Captain Desjani indicated you wished me to attend,” Carabali explained, to which the other three nodded in agreement.

  All right, Tanya. Maybe it’ll be good to have that backup. On a sudden suspicion, he checked the software and saw that Desjani herself was also monitoring the meeting in blind mode.

  Geary swept his eyes around the table, already knowing that none of the freed prisoners was Michael Geary but unable to keep from looking for him one more time.

  He stood up to speak, only to have one of the admirals shoot to his own feet. “It is necessary to discuss command issues as soon as—”

  Geary had been through variations on this before, during the long retreat from the Syndic home star system. He already had the right control ready and silenced audio from that officer. “I am Admiral Geary,” he began, as if no one else had already spoken. “I am in command of this fleet.”

  Rione made a small gesture, as if unable to stop herself, and Geary paused in reaction, only then realizing the pause gave his statement more force. Is she helping?

  Geary went on, welcoming the freed prisoners and explaining the mission. “Unfortunately, even though you all deserve to be returned to Alliance space as soon as possible, we are deep within Syndic space. I can’t detach any of the assault transports to take you back, not unless I escort it with a strong force of warships, and given our lack of knowledge about the threats we will face inside alien space, I don’t feel comfortable diminishing my force at this point.

  “Also, unfortunately, it’s impossible for me to speak individually with each of you. We’ll be jumping back to Hasadan soon, then using the Syndic hypernet system to proceed to Midway, so there will be little opportunity to communicate between ships.”

  Finally, the question he didn’t want to ask. “Are there any questions?”

  More than two hundred men and women started talking at once. The software automatically blocked all of their audio, highlighting each individual so Geary could choose who would be heard. “One at a time, please,” he said, more loudly than necessary since he didn’t actually have to shout everyone down. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he indicated the admiral who had first tried to speak. “You have a question?”

  Standing up again, his face set, the officer looked around the table as he spoke rather than aiming his words at Geary. “Fleet procedures need to be followed regardless of circumstances. We are combat commanders, highly skilled and respected. Our first order of business must be to establish an agreed-upon fleet commander—”

  This time the admiral was interrupted by another former prisoner, also an admiral, who pointed toward Geary. “Chelak, use your head for something besides making noise. That’s Black Jack. He’s our equal in rank, he’s in command, and every sailor and officer I’ve talked to in this fleet supports him.”

  “My date of rank is much earlier than his! I earned respect for that, as did you all!” Chelak insisted.

  “He’s earned some respect, too,” a female general replied. “I’m still trying to catch up on things that have happened since I was captured, but it’s obvious that none of us has enough of a grasp on the current situation to supplant someone who does.”

  “That doesn’t mean we ignore honor and tradition,” a female admiral shot back.

  “We’re supposed to give lessons in honor and tradition to Black Jack?”

  “We don’t know that he’s really—”

  “Read up on the last several months,” the second male admiral suggested.

  A hundred officers started talking this time.

  General Carabali stood, drawing their attention. “The fleet’s Marines will follow the orders of Admiral Geary.” She sat down again, the flat statement seeming to echo amid the sudden silence.

  “Some of you may know me,” General Charban suggested. “I can assure you that the government and headquarters placed Admiral Geary firmly in command.”

  “As if we care for what either one does,” someone called out.

  Another outburst, hundreds of voices being shut off so that images of high-ranking officers yelled silently at each other.

  Tulev looked at Geary, speaking on a private circuit. “This is unmanageable. You could spend weeks speaking with them and get nowhere.”

  Carabali nodded. “Too many alphas in one fleet. You’d be best off packing them all on Haboob and disabling all the comm systems.”

  “Seconded,” Desjani’s voice sounded in his ear.

  Geary looked at Charban and Rione. “What are the government’s wishes?”

  She looked back at him. “I have no instructions for disposition of freed prisoners.”

  Charban spread his hands. “I have none, either.”

  Geary switched to a private circuit with just those two on it with him. “The government ordered us to liberate this bunch. I was ordered to bring the fleet here. Why? What do they want with them? Why did we need to pick them up before proceeding into
alien space?”

  “I have no instructions,” Rione repeated, her expression unyielding.

  That did it. “Then I consider this a matter that must be dealt with using my authority. Neither of you is an elected official. Under Alliance law, outside of Alliance territory, a fleet commander has authority over civilians who work for the government or anyone contracted to the government. You and General Charban are hereby assigned to act as primary liaisons with the freed prisoners. You two are their first points of contact, and you two will attempt to resolve any and all issues concerning them. I will be informed of any actions posing a threat to the fleet or violating regulations or Alliance law. Otherwise, the government wanted them, so the government can have them.”

  He looked down the table again as Charban stared at Geary, aghast, and Rione reddened slightly but otherwise remained impassive. Keying his override, Geary spoke to all of the prisoners. “Thank you for your sacrifices and service to the Alliance. Governmental emissaries Rione and Charban will now be your primary points of contact on all matters. I look forward to your safe return to Alliance space.” By the living stars, do I look forward to that. “Thank you. To the honor of our ancestors.”

  Cutting himself, Carabali, and Tulev out of the conference, so their presences disappeared as far as everyone else was concerned, Geary left the compartment.

  He spent a while roaming the passageways, not wanting to be alone with his thoughts in his stateroom and too restless to sit anywhere. Stopping to talk with some sailors as they worked was comfortingly familiar, as if the century he had lost had never been. The equipment might be different, but sailors were always sailors.

  Tanya ran him down at one point, walking beside him silently for a while before speaking. “Giving them to the emissaries was brilliant, but it’s not really a solution, you know.”

  “I know. Some of them could still make major trouble.”

  “Your grip on the fleet is much, much stronger than it was when Falco made his moves. Plus, you’ve been formally appointed to command instead of being an acting commander. And as far as we know, none of the current ship captains are working against you.”